10 February 2005 Edition

Upsurge in loyalist activity

In a series of attacks over the weekend, loyalist thugs attacked the homes
of nationalist families in North and West Belfast.

In an attack on a house on Mill Road, on the outskirts of the Bawnmore
estate in North Belfast, loyalists smashed in the front window of a
nationalist couple's home at around 6am on Sunday 6 February.

According to neighbours, a man got out of a car, which had its registration
number blocked out, and repeatedly smashed a breeze block against the
reinforced living room window of the house.

The woman occupant said the sectarian attack was the sixth in a number of
years. "The PSNI are aware of this information but there is little chance of
arrests," she said. "The row of houses where I live has been targeted at
least ten times in the past three years and no one has ever been caught."

Newtownabbey Sinn Féin Councillor Briege Meehan said she was in no doubt
that the UDA were behind the sectarian attack.

In a second attack, nationalist homes on the Blacks Road in West Belfast
were targeted by loyalist stone throwers, who smashed a number of windows.

Meanwhile, two schoolboys walking home were beaten by a man armed with an
iron bar in Armagh City on Saturday night 5 February. The boys said their
attacker shouted sectarian abuse during the assault on the Newry Road.

Both were treated in hospital for head and arm injuries, one of them
receiving four staples and a number of stitches to a head wound.